Russia advises Ukraine not to evade the implementation of the Minsk agreements, and hopes that the deployment of the UN mission to protect the OSCE observers in the conflict zone will help the Ukrainian authorities deal with the settlement of the crisis.
This was announced this evening by Sergey Lavrov at the meeting of the UN Security Council. Earlier, President Poroshenko said that he needed UN soldiers for "protection against Russia's aggression." Foreign delegations don't seem to believe anti-Russian stock phrases from Kiev much anymore. Valentin Bogdanov reporting. President of Ukraine, Petr Poroshenko, goes to America to beg for two things — weapons and money.
Speeches in the UN add to this agenda a few more minutes of glory. At the Security Council meeting, before the beginning of which Poroshenko diligently kept closer to US Vice President, Pence, and Permanent Representative, Haley, he, as the tradition goes, came with visual aids.
There is incontrovertible evidence that Russia created, leads, controls, and sponsors a terrorist operation in Donbass. And this is the evidence.
These are the passports of Russian officers and soldiers, some of whom are now in Ukrainian prisons for their illegal occupation of Ukrainian territories. Showing passports is an old trick. Poroshenko already did it two years ago at the Munich Conference. This is called "stamp" in theatrical language. But the stage role, which the Ukrainian president has been playing for the fourth General Assembly in a row, is sure to be appreciated by his new colleague in the political sphere, actor Morgan Freeman.
He already played a head of state once. Millions of people died. An uncountable number of them were left homeless. Cities have fallen, but they’ll be restored. Now, the Hollywood master of heartfelt monologues is saving America not from stray asteroids, but from Moscow's interference. Freeman joined the organization called "The Investigation Committee Against Russia." We need the president to sit behind the desk in the Oval Office and say, "My fellow Americans, during the last election, we were attacked by the Russian government".
Freeman, as a creative man, might be forgiven for this exaltation in the spirit of Senator McCarthy. In politics, they use facts, not acting. Moscow calls on Kiev to refrain from unfounded accusations and proceed to discussions of substantive issues, including the issue of placing a UN contingent in Donbass.
However, by the time when Sergey Lavrov spoke in the Security Council, Poroshenko and Pence had already left the hall. The first and basic principle of the UN peacekeeping remains fully valid: the Blue Helmets can be deployed only with the consent of the parties to the conflict.
The second pillar of the UN peacekeeping operation is impartiality. It’s unacceptable that peacekeepers under any pretext take the side of one or another participant in the conflict. On the eve, Sergey Lavrov discussed the situations both in Ukraine and Syria with Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson.
They agreed that there was no alternative to cooperation even when relations are almost at an absolute zero. In general, right here in New York, during the meetings at the UN, world politics stops using both Hollywood stamps and the images of tough guys, whom the Americans are so fond of in diplomacy. Whether they like it or not.
Valentin Bogdanov and Ivan Utkin, Vesti from New York.
